WCIX TV Action 6 News at 6pm Eastern Airlines Shutdown Segment Miami January 18, 1991

Eastern Airlines Shutdown.
This broadcast is from WCIX TV in Miami, Florida, United States from January 18, 1991. Some promos, commercials, branding, or interstitial material may be included.
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[@altfactor]

Al Sunshine. What a name for a Miami TV reporter!

[@m_christine1070]

Another anchor , was named Jill Beach, on another Miami local station at the time

[@6120mcghee]

Fact. There was a potential bailout by the Gov't to help Eastern until EAL's management tack tail and sold out to Texas air. Texas Air then bled Eastern dry.. When Eastern's workers got their stock buy's and ran the show., Eastern hummed like a kitten. But the powers that be hated sharing revenue with their hated enemies: the Union's.

[@marcosjuarez7809]

Martin Shugrue may have put the "old" Eastern Air Lines out of business, but it was Frank Lorenzo who killed the "old" Eastern Air Lines. I have seen the documentary of how the "old" Eastern Air Lines was killed by Frank Lorenzo on Frontline which was originally aired on PBS in the late 1980s. The "new" Eastern Air Lines went back to business in 2015, but it was not following the same success as the "old" Eastern Air Lines.

[@joannwinn8545]

I worked for EAL for more thaen 10 years. This was a very sad day indeed. Frank Lorenzo screwed everybody!

[@zoso73]

The union leadership did EAL no favors. (I worked there also, so did my dad.)

[@waldotrueb6081]

I was IAM from 79 to when we walked. Lorenzo and Borman wanted to be millionaires, at the expense of the people who did all the work...

[@altfactor]

A couple of hours later, Eastern announced that it would shut down as of 12 Midnight EST.

[@musky314]

The Airline DeRegulation act killed EAL. It allowed non union start up like People Express to compete head in with EAL .Union leaders did not grasp the significance of the legislation it pitted Airline against Airline. Pilots at EAL took concessions while the machinists under Charlie Bryant stood firm in their demands. Sad

[@glennkennedy441]

A very sad day.....

[@6120mcghee]

Frank Lorenzo was the butcher of Eastern.

[@ChrisJohnson-hk6es]

The union ceo saying he hoped another airline would hire the striking workers..... That alone just makes me wish we could go back in time and fix it before it happened.

[@Tvsnumber1fan]

For me what killed Eastern Airlines was management being too militaristic in their leadership style dating back to the leadership of Rickenbacker and Borman and the distrust of management by the unions and workforce of Eastern. The distrust of management got much worse after Frank Lorenzo’s Texas International brought the company in 1986 but was there years before. I am sorry to say this but without Frank Lorenzo’s though leadership in the 1980s, Continental Airlines would of declared bankruptcy in the years immediately following 9/11 and it might of went out of business by the late 1990s. This is because Frank Lorenzo knew that in order for Continental Airlines to compete with Airlines such as Southwest and People Express, Continental had to cut costs and fares in the 1980s in order for it to survive. Could Frank Lorenzo of done a better job with his rank and file employees. Yes of course because he should of been more willing to work with the unions rather than playing the blame game at Eastern and Continental. Also I think that Frank Lorenzo could of been more human, had more empathy towards his workers, and more understanding of the pain that his policies were causing the rank and file employees at Texas International, Eastern and Continental. Plus Frank Lorenzo should of done a heck of a lot more to come up with a deal with its Machinists union, especially after those talks went into mediation in the late 1980s. Also selling the good assets of Eastern as a threat to the unions was not a good idea because it caused not only low morale amongst the workers but it helped lead to Eastern’s ultimate downfall in 1991. Well that and all of the strikes that Eastern had had over the decades which you can partly blame on the unions because they didn’t understand that the airline industry had changed after airline deregulation. However if you really want to blame someone for your wages being slashed and for you and your fellow workers losing jobs in the airline industry since the late 1970s blame former US Senator of Nevada Howard Cannon for introducing the bill that deregulated the airline industry in 1978. The of of the main reason why Cannon introduced the bill was in order to help Las Vegas and Reno area’s increase their tourism numbers, which airline deregulation did in massive numbers. Weather airline deregulation really lowed airfares is still a matter of massive debate. If airline deregulation didn’t happen in the late 1970s it would of happened during Reagan‘s Presidency because deregulation of industries was a major part of Reagan‘s platform. So deregulation had a much more major impact to the airline industry in the 1980s than anyone executive of an airline including Frank Lorenzo. If it wasn’t for deregulation what Frank Lorenzo did at Continental wouldn’t of had the impact that it has had ever since. Weather you agree with what he did or not.

[@Sl1pstreams]

The union leadership was utterly deluded, as shown in that clip. They really thought that after deliberately destroying the carrier with a long strike, they’d successfully get their old jobs back with a new carrier. Yikes.

[@NomadlifewithRae-ou5sc]

Exactly.

[@annafraley5388]

Dad worked there from one month after WWII ended until 1978, he could have stayed longer but was Totally Sick of frank borman and left after 33 years. I remember when this happened in 91 as a lot of the pilots were trying to get on at KALITTA AIR up at Willow Run in Ypsilanti Michigan, in fact a lot of them did. He did like Eddie Rickenbacker quit a bit though during his reign.!!

[@Itanium153]

My god Dave Game looks like Paul Bearer wtf wwf/wwe

[@schnellguy]

I thought Marty was going to save the day!

[@joannapoli4115]

Wonderful !

[@arnaldocerra7218]

Charlie Bryant and the IAM were at fault.

[@marcosjuarez7809]

But it was Frank Lorenzo who killed Eastern Air Lines.

[@NomadlifewithRae-ou5sc]

Yes, Frank Lorenzo was horrible, but the union was just as bad, poor decisions on both parties ended in the demise of Eastern. The airline unions of today, especially with flight attendants has only gotten worse.

[@ericjones7769]

It would had been great if Eastern could have partnered up and merged with somebody like Northwest Airlines

[@Sl1pstreams]

It would only have delayed the inevitable. The unions weren’t willing to modernize operations, so the airline would always eventually run out of money and fail.

[@brkitdwn]

They needed to go